The Probe
by Stormkpr
Summary: Azazel/Riptide. There is trouble between Azazel and Riptide. Emma forces Azazel to submit to a memory probe so she can determine what's going on and how to get the Hellfire Club functioning again. COMPLETE


**Author's Notes**:

In other fanfic, I've written Riptide as unable to speak, but I took a different approach with this one.

Also, in a previous fanfic, I ended with some thoughts on Azazel and I think they bear repeating here. I understand that comic-version Azazel is some sort of demon who has been around forever. What about movie-verse? We don't really get enough of movie-Azazel to know if they are following comic canon or not, and we all know that the movies rarely do so. I think it's equally possible that movie-Azazel, like Nightcrawler, is simply a mutant who looks like a demon.

* * *

><p><strong>The Probe<strong>

You want to hear my story, my background? I see, Miss Frost, that I have no choice and you are entering my mind right now to get my story as I see it. So I will silently tell it to you.

You first ask to learn more about where I came from. If you don't know anything about life in Russia in the 1920's and 1930's, then – with all due respect, Miss Frost - open a history book because I am not going to be the one to educate you. I lived in a large city and most people there had no education, no food, but we did have much alcohol and much fear. You can see the stark images from my memories now as you probe my brain.

My parents were sent to the gulag, and I lived with my grandparents from the time I was five. I slept inside a closet in the one-bedroom apartment. My grandfather was drunk all the time. He was not a violent drunk but he was a useless one. My grandmother was kind enough to me until my mutation began to appear, and then she chased me around the apartment with a butcher knife yelling curses against demons. I have no doubt that she would have killed me had she been strong or fast enough.

My training? I am entirely self-taught. I had no Sebastian Shaw, no one to explain how to use these strange powers. I lived on the streets from the time I was 13, and I taught myself how to hide, how to teleport, how to wield a sword, how to use my tail as another weapon, how to fight to the death. I became a swift and cunning machine.

You ask if was deprived, if I had any of the basic needs of a human being. I can tell you that if I felt terror over what was happening to me and the way my appearance was changing, I suffered it alone. The nights I was cold and hungry on the streets, I was cold and hungry alone. Living this way made me strong and hard, and I began to know that I was powerful just by surviving from one day to another.

Your probe is forcing all of this out of me, and I wish you would not dig so deep. Ah, now I see that you're getting images from the time that I already looked like a demon but before I learned how to teleport at will. A few men captured me and held me in a basement for days. They taunted me, whipped me, starved me, urinated on me, and would have killed me had I not finally learned how to teleport away and stay teleported away. That experience was the best teacher, though a cruel one.

No, your idea of 'love' is not something I ever experienced. That word is useless and irrelevant. Maybe my grandmother loved me at one point but not when my skin began to change color, my features changed, I grew a tail. My mother and father perhaps loved me – the memories I have of them were pleasant but, as I said, my parents were taken away from me when I was five. At school, I had friends but they abandoned me too once the mutation became apparent. After I left home and learned to survive the streets, I had some associates and business partners in my life over the years – no one else. Humans were easy to hate. They feared and loathed me, and I looked forward to the day when I would be able to annihilate them.

You want to know about sex, then? Why does that not surprise me, Miss Frost? I know some people would believe that a freak like me would never have had anyone other than another freak. They are wrong. I gained mastery of my powers. I lived underground and built up wealth from stealing and fighting. In a country where most of the population is hungry and desperate, some people will overcome their fear of those who look like monsters. They will do so when they need them badly enough. There were some women at first, brave ones, and I enjoyed them well enough. I knew that I never pleased them though; I can tell when someone is or is not enjoying my talents. And there just weren't enough women who were brave enough to approach me. A man propositioned me once and at first I nearly punched him but I had always wanted to try it with a man, and so I did. That led to more of that sort of thing, and I enjoyed it better with a man. I never played the woman's role, and I never felt like any less of a man.

Then Sebastian Shaw found me, and you must know how things were for me then. It was good to know that there were others like me. Children of the Atom. I didn't have much trust or love for other living creatures – not even fellow mutants. But this was a team I could live and work with. I liked Shaw's plans for eliminating the useless humans. For the first time in a few decades, I felt excitement. Killing people for money or for self-defense was wearying. But with Shaw, we had a chance to make the world the way we wanted.

A man needs sex, and that dark-haired Latin man drooled over me from the start. I went to him and that first time his hands shook from the excitement that I caused.

After not too long, I could tell that Riptide was starting to feel love for me. As you now know, I didn't have much experience with love but I knew it when I saw it. A blind man could have seen and felt it.

This interview is difficult for me, even with you inside my head and forcing me to tell my story. Given what you know of my background, I don't need to tell you that I have never sat around thinking about my feelings. As I said, feelings were useless and irrelevant to me. But I knew that something was wrong with me. I never kissed anyone the way I kissed Janos (as I called him in private) before, never stayed in bed with someone after having had them, never wanted to lie around with them touching their skin and playing with their hair.

I remember New Year's Eve when you and Shaw were out celebrating. I, of course, could not go anywhere and never had had a holiday out on the town. Janos remained with me on the submarine, and we drank champagne and kissed. I played Russian music in the background, we played cards, and we laughed together. We danced. I had ordered him a present, a watch. I had never bought anyone a present before and his eyes became so excited and happy, which brought me pleasure. It took me a while to realize that I was experiencing something called happiness, and it was terrible because I knew it could not last.

So yes, I was becoming weak, sickeningly weak. No offense, Miss Frost, but I am not a simpering, love-sick woman, and if I became one I would despise myself. Loving another human being was never an option.

I had no choice but to take a drastic step.

* * *

><p>Emma ceased her probe of Azazel's mind. She took a breath and changed perspectives. Shaw had ordered her to determine exactly why Riptide was unable to perform his job, and Emma decided to use another tactic. She changed the focus of her probe and, instead of letting Azazel's mind speak to hers and tell the story himself, she simply opened up his memory and replayed his last scene with Riptide. She was able to watch it exactly as it had unfolded two days ago. This method was more invasive but would provide additional information.<p>

"Azazel, please, I do not understand," Riptide had said after Azazel had shocked him. "What do you mean?"

"My meaning is clear," Azazel had responded, crossing his arms over his chest. "I am finished with you. We will work together but that is all. No more bedroom, no more touching. I do not need you."

Riptide's face drained of color and Emma saw intense fear and pain in his eyes. He waved his hands as he spoke. "This is like a nightmare. I have displeased you in some way? Is there something I can do?" Riptide began to sound desperate. "You want me to beg and grovel, is that it?"

Watching the flashback, Emma admired Azazel's resolve and strength, especially because she could easily read his heart and knew that he was being destroyed inside as much as Riptide.

"No," Azazel had said. "You can do nothing and do not need to beg. I will not be your lover anymore. Just your coworker." He paused and then said, "Now pull yourself together and do not look at me that way. What was between us in the past now does not exist to me and never did."

"Tell me why!" Riptide had demanded, but Azazel simply teleported away.

The playback of the scene now finished, Emma shook her head. It was little wonder why Riptide had been practically comatose the past 48 hours. He would be of no use to Shaw. The leader's orders were clear – find a way to get Riptide to be the steady and productive henchman he had been before, or eliminate him. The Hellfire Club did not tolerate deadweight.

Emma released Azazel's mind. "Thank you, Azazel. I think I understand the situation now."

Azazel nodded. "Good. You have what you need and will not enter my mind again?"

"I have some of what I need. But you are not released from this interview yet," Emma said straightforwardly. She reached for her drink and enjoyed a sip, taking her time. She crossed her legs.

She then said, "You are ordered to go back to Riptide. Go to him, take back what you said, and become his lover again."

"What?" Azazel gasped.

"You have sworn obedience to Shaw – and, by extension, to me. I know you're thinking that we are going too far in dictating the private lives of members of the Hellfire Club. But your personal business is impacting our work, and we can't eliminate the humans if we're not all working together. You have seen what Riptide has been like these past two days."

"It is unfortunate but unavoidable," Azazel stated, reflecting back the same cool and matter-of-fact tone that Emma was using on him. "I refuse to become a simpering fool." He silently added, and of course Emma heard it too, 'I refuse to love.'

Emma held up her hands. "You already **are** in love. It is done. You love him, and he loves you. Forcing a separation only means that neither of you will be able to function. You hide it better than he, but as I have already told Mr Shaw, you are breaking down inside as much as Riptide is. You will soon be as useless as he is now. I would hate to see Mr Shaw eliminate one or both of you. It would be such a waste." She paused. "The only way you two can function is as **one unit**."

Emma then stood up and went over to Azazel, smoothing his collar. She spoke gently and almost playfully now. She subtly opened his mind to make it especially receptive to her next words. "Besides, it's what you want. I've been inside your mind and I know you love him like crazy. There's nothing wrong with that. You think it makes you weak, but it doesn't. So go to him – now."

Azazel silently considered. He replayed Emma's words and pondered them. "Yes," he said, at last. His heart already began to race. He had spent the last 48 hours in agony too, though he had kept telling himself that he was strong enough and it would pass. Maybe Emma's way would be better. "I will."

"Good. Oh, one last thing, Azazel," Emma said, her voice taking on a sweet tone. "As Mr Shaw and I have warned before, do continue to be discrete about this. We are going to build an army of mutant warriors, and we can't have anyone turning away because they do not want to associate with two men who they might believe are queer. No offense. It is clear to me that we can't function without the two of you being together, but you need to continue to handle it with discretion."

Azazel nodded, asked if he was released, and when given permission, left the room.

* * *

><p>Azazel banged on Riptide's door. When he did not receive a response, he teleported inside the room. He was not surprised to see Riptide sprawled on the bed, unshaven and bleary-eyed.<p>

"We must talk," Azazel said. "You are sober?"

"What do you want?" Riptide asked, sitting up. "And yes, I am sober." He began to use his fingers to try to comb his hair.

Riptide's tone was irritated, but Azazel could read his lover well enough to know that behind his eyes there were hope and relief. Riptide's hands shook slightly as he smoothed his hair.

Azazel dropped to his knees in front of Riptide, who was now seated on the bed. "Janos," he began, "I made a terrible mistake. I beg your forgiveness. Please take me back. Please let me be your lover again."

This was agonizing for Azazel and he despised the weakness that he was forced to display. But he wanted Riptide back enough that he knew that this was the less painful of the two roads.

Riptide let only a second or two pass before responding. Azazel's gesture of kneeling in front of him was quite dramatic.

"I should make you beg and grovel," Riptide said, his voice surprisingly firm. "I will not, but I do demand that you tell me what happened! Why did you push me away?"

Azazel decided that he would need to share some things with Janos that he had never shared with anyone other than Emma – against his will - before. The thought made him hideously uncomfortable, but he knew he had no choice.

"Shaw and Emma ordered me to experience a mind probe with Emma. I…I want to tell you what she forced me to share with her. All of it. That will explain why I pushed you away."

"I am ready to listen." It was something Riptide always did well.

Azazel spoke for a long time. Hours later, the two men wrapped in each other's arms, Azazel kissed Riptide's damp forehead. Whispering hoarsely, he spoke the words that he had never before said to anyone else.

"I love you."

Riptide pulled him closer. He had clearly been starved to hear those words. "I love you so much," Riptide murmured, nuzzling his face against Azazel's neck.

Azazel drifted off to sleep, deciding that this way was somehow both much harder but much better, and that on balance he owed a debt to Emma.

**THE END**

Feedback is never a bad thing.


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